Is it just me, or did the month of May long ago become the new December?
If there's anything, and I mean anything, taking place, it happens this month. From band concerts, to piano recitals, to award banquets, to graduations of all grades & degrees, to weddings and baby showers, to holiday weekend barbecues—to you name it. It's enough to make a person go out and buy stock in Hallmark.
What a coincidence then that the term “May Day” should also come to mind. No, not the May Day that brings with it pictures of flower wreaths & maypoles festooned with ribbons bobbing in the breeze, but rather, the version that brings images of massive sea vessels stealthily speeding to the rescue of some poor, unfortunate boat in harm’s way. In fact, a quick online search netted this explanation of the term saying “…mayday is an anglicized version of the French m'aidez i.e. help me, or m'aider i.e. to render help to me.”
So how much more coincidental (ya think?) is the fact that almost smack dab square in the middle of all the activity this month brings, we celebrate Mother’s Day. Mothers who are living, and mothers who have gone on. Good mothers and perhaps not so good mothers. We honor single mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and all those who are like a mother, including those with no biological children of their own but who lovingly guide and nurture someone, or several someones as the case may be, all the same.
In short, much like those sleek sailing ships, we celebrate mothers who render help.
Which brings us to perhaps the grandest coincidence of them all—that being this just also so happens to be the month we honor the mother all others are patterned after—Mother Mary. And while she goes by more titles than the Vatican has statues, none seem more appropriate at this particular moment than that of our Mother of Perpetual Help.
Who among us can’t use a little perpetual help? I for one am all about getting in that line. In fact, were it not for my own incredible Mom who raised me with better manners than to do so, I might even be inclined to jostle my way to stand at the front of it!
In any event, be this month crazy or quiet, fleeting or floating—may it hold help at precisely the moment you need it.